Rotor blades used for vehicular propulsion, such as helicopter rotor blades, tiltrotor proprotor blades and airplane propeller blades, are subject to erosion during operation. For example, rotor blade erosion may occur as a result of the rotor blades traveling at a high rate of speed in extremely austere environmental conditions including through a medium containing water droplets, such as rain, and/or particulates, such as dust, sand, dirt and rocks. To counter rotor blade erosion, spanwise continuous abrasion strips have been bonded to the leading edge of rotor blades to provide a shield against rotor blade erosion damage due to solid and/or liquid particle impacts. These abrasion strips are typically formed from rigid materials such as metals including stainless steels, nickel and titanium as well as polymeric materials such as rubbers, elastomers, urethanes and polyurethanes.
It has been found, however, that conventional abrasion strips are susceptible to fatigue damage, including fatigue cracking, responsive to strain experienced by rotor blades during high cycle fatigue and Ground-Air-Ground (GAG) cycles, including both tensile stain and bending stain. For example, operation cycles, rotor blades experience centrifugal forces, in-plane chord bending as well as other cyclic and noncyclic deformations. Once an abrasion strip begins to experience fatigue damage, it becomes more susceptible to erosion damage as well as to additional fatigue damage including partial or total detachment of the abrasion strip from the rotor blade. Accordingly, a need has arisen for improved rotor blade erosion protection systems that are capable of withstanding strain experienced by rotor blades, while maintaining their structural integrity and rotor blade erosion protection functionality.